Markets, Public Policy & Law

• QST BA 221: Introduction to Data and Business Analytics
  Undergraduate pre-requisite: QSTSM 131; students beyond first-year must take QSTSM 131 previously or concurrently. - Exposes students to business data and business analytics. Topics in business analytics include the fundamentals of probability and statistics, but the emphasis is on the collection, structuring, and analysis of data to support business decision-making. Topics include descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics, as well as distributions, sampling, estimation, hypothesis testing, and chi-square analyses. Effective Fall 2025, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Quantitative Reasoning I.
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  • Quantitative Reasoning I
• QST BA 222: Modeling Business Decisions and Market Outcomes with Spreadsheets and Statistical Programming
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: QSTBA 221. - Students must choose either QSTBA 222 or QSTBA 223, and students cannot take both courses. This course examines the use of economic and statistical tools for making business decisions at an advanced level, and prepares students for future study in business analytics. Introduces programming for data analysis (no previous programming knowledge required) and links data analysis to decision making using both spreadsheet modeling and statistical programming. Topics include multiple regression, causal inference, forecasting, predictive analytics, machine learning, demand modeling, and optimization. Case studies apply advanced concepts to practical business problems. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Quantitative Reasoning II.
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  • Quantitative Reasoning II
• QST BA 223: Business Modeling with Spreadsheets
  Undergraduate pre-requisite: QSTBA 221. Formerly QSTQM 222. Students must choose either QSTBA 222 or QSTBA 223 (formerly QM222). Students cannot take both BA222 and BA223. - This course examines the use of economic and statistical tools for making business decisions. The course emphasizes linking data analysis to spreadsheet modeling to support advanced business decision making. Topics include multiple regression, causal inference, forecasting, demand modeling, and optimization. Case studies apply concepts to practical business problems and the principal software tool used in the course is the spreadsheet. Effective Fall 2025, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Quantitative Reasoning 2.
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  • Quantitative Reasoning II
• QST BA 305: Business Decision-Making with Data
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: QST BA222 or QST QM222 and either CAS CS111 or CDS DS110 - Explores advanced business analytics topics, including risk and uncertainty, optimization, decision analysis, multi-attributes objective functions, and time tradeoffs. Links data models to strategy and ethics. Relies on both statistical programming and spreadsheet modeling and introduces novel techniques. Cases studies and projects apply topics to practical business problems.
• QST BA 320: Healthcare Analytics
  Pre-requisite: QSTBA 222; or QM222/BA223 and CASCS 111 or CDSDS 110. This course introduces students to the healthcare industry by utilizing different types of healthcare datasets (claims, EHR, clinical trial, public health data) to explore questions and decision-making across players in the industry. Using advanced methods including logistic regression, predictive modeling, and machine learning in Python, students will connect concepts from health economics to analyze data towards business and strategic outcomes. This course will help prepare students for jobs in healthcare consulting as well as business and data analysts at life sciences firms.
• QST BA 325: Action Learning Lab: Applied Analytics
  Pre-requisite: QSTBA 305, QSTXP 298, and junior standing. This course is a project-based experiential course giving students the opportunity to apply business analytics skills to a real-world problems in partnership with an actual client organization. Working in teams, students will use data provided by the client, supplemented where appropriate with additional data sources, to investigate business questions and develop data-driven solutions. Students will gain experience working through the analytics process, from understanding the business problem and exploring/ preparing the data to selecting appropriate analytical methods, interpreting results, and communicating actionable insights with clear delivery. Throughout the engagement, students will consider the business context and client needs as they refine their analyses and recommendations, culminating in student teams presenting their findings and recommendations to the client directly.
• QST BE 101: Introductory Microeconomics for Business and Strategy
  Questrom BSBA first-year students only. Students must choose either QSTBE 101 or CASEC 101. Students cannot take both BE101 and EC101. Business economics provides students with an intellectual framework for understanding how businesses work: how firms interact in markets, and how markets respond to regulation and policy. Business economics has a dual mission: it is both a social science that describes how markets function and a framework that provides practical guidance for business leaders. This course focuses on business-relevant questions of how markets and businesses interact to create and distribute value. The course takes a data-based, empirical approach to these questions and uses experiential learning and interactive activities to enhance students' applications of economics to BU business problems. The course describes how social value is created via innovation and economic growth and how social value can be destroyed through harmful externalities. Effective Fall 2024, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Critical Thinking, Ethical Reasoning, Social Inquiry 1.
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  • Critical Thinking
  • Ethical Reasoning
  • Social Inquiry I
• QST BE 102: Introduction to Macroeconomics for Business
  Prerequisite: CASEC 101 or QSTBE 101. Questrom BSBA students only. - Sound business decision-making requires an understanding of the economic environment in which firms operate. It requires an understanding of key economic indicators, the role of economic institutions, and the mechanics of the macroeconomy. This course builds upon the Business Economics course in Introductory Microeconomic for Business to introduce students to the economic theories and tools that enable a better understanding of national economic performance; the problems of recession, unemployment, and inflation; money creation, government spending, and taxation; economic policies for full employment and price stability; and international trade and payments, interpreted through the lens of business. The course takes a data-based, empirical approach to these questions and uses experiential learning and interactive activities to enhance students' applications of macroeconomics to business problems. Effective Spring 2026, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Social Inquiry I.
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  • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
  • Social Inquiry I
• QST BE 325: Strategy in the Health and Life Science Sector
  Undergraduate Pre-requisite: Sophomore standing. - This course examines the distinctive strategic and economic challenges that healthcare and life science firms face. It explores how innovators, providers, and insurers in the healthcare industry create and capture value. We will develop frameworks of competition specific to the healthcare industry. Public policy responds to the unique features of these markets, and we will examine how this generates new affects business opportunities. The course offers insights into the unique aspects of the U.S. healthcare system and how it compares globally. We explore questions such as: How does payment affect the types of drugs firms develop? How do insurers avoid expensive customers? Who is incentivized to offer high-quality health care? Effective Fall 2024, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Social Inquiry II.
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  • Social Inquiry II
• QST BE 350: The Psychology of Decision Making: Implications for Business and Public Policy
  Undergraduate Pre-requisite: Sophomore standing. - We provide an introduction to how individuals make decisions, applying the tools of psychology and economics. We will learn to identify common mistakes and biases. Students will have the opportunity to evaluate their own decision- making ability and learn how to make improved decisions. We link each aspect of decision-making studied to current personal finance decision, business problem & public policy issue. This course will improve negotiation ability and prepare students to use social science data to support decisions. The course consists of cases, discussions, lectures & project. Effective Fall 2024, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry II, Critical Thinking.
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  • Critical Thinking
  • Social Inquiry II
• QST BE 720: Organizations, Markets, and Society
  Understanding and analyzing the core strategic decisions facing businesses in competitive markets. Students will examine how businesses achieve their fundamental goals given the need to produce goods and services efficiently and a market environment reflecting consumer preferences (demand) and the strategies and strengths of competitors. Students will develop analytic skills necessary for understanding core business models and how different models create value for the business as well as the larger society.
• QST BE 721: Economics and Management Decisions
  Graduate Pre-requisite: QST MO712 or MO713 (QST QM716 or QM717 recommended). The aim of the course is to present many of the decision problems managers face and to present the economic analysis they need to guide these decisions. Microeconomic tools are used to structure complicated decision problems about production, pricing, investment, and other strategic issues, address uncertainty through probabilistic forecasts and sequential decisions. An important part of the course is to develop an understanding of the external environment in which firms operate by analyzing the implications of market structure, macroeconomic developments and policy, and other forms of public policy toward business.
• QST BE 834: Macroeconomics in the Global Environment
  Macroeconomics is the study of the aggregate behavior of global market participants, i.e., consumers, firms, workers, governments, central banks, foreign investors. Decision making by investment bankers, product/sales managers, policy makers, or consumers inevitably rely on an understanding of the main forces driving GDP, inflation, unemployment, interest rates, and exchange rates. Consider these questions: 1. Should new consumer durable products be launched during recessions? 2. Are countries that experience high productivity growth good investment targets? 3. Will interest rates drop if the US government starts buying back its debt? 4. With significant liquidity demands by the US economy from the public sector, the household sector and businesses, what explains the low US interest rates? Are these factors expected to keep interest rates low also in the future? 5. Can the Euro boost productivity in Europe in the medium to long run and what are the competitiveness challenges for US businesses of such changes? 6. What are the economic effects of wars and how should they be financed? These and other issues will come up in the course. The main goal of this course is to provide a coherent framework that you can use to understand economic events as you confront them in your work environment.
• QST BE 845: Improving Your Decisions
  The main aim of Improving Your Decisions is to present many of the decision problems managers face and to identify the most effective ways to make sound decisions - as well as the pitfalls, biases, and mistakes that should be avoided. A key element of the course is to present students with a series of decision challenges: What would you do? In other words, you must come to grips with actual decisions and defend your actions. The assigned readings also convey the most recent research findings in behavioral economics: how individuals and managers actually make decisions. The second half of the course centers on group decision making: how groups with common and not-so-common interests decide. The focus shifts from individual choices to group decisions that embody both competitive and cooperative elements.
• QST HM 717: Drugs, Devices, and Diagnostics: New Challenges, Strategies, and Execution
  Graduate Prerequisites: QST HM703, QST FE712 or FE722, QST MK723 or MK724, QST SI750 or SI751 - This course will examine issues and opportunities in life sciences focused on the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical devices sectors and the life sciences service industry supporting these sectors, through the eyes of the CEO. The course will investigate who manages these companies and what are the strategies that are used to build successful enterprises. Students will be introduced to individuals and institutions at every stage of the development cycle from idea generation and start-up fundraising to manufacturing, commercialization and global expansion. We will specifically look at key elements of strategy and the execution by examining companies, that have either succeeded or failed, by discussing the pros and cons of different approaches and teasing out the lessons one can derive from leaders in the field and case studies examining their approaches.
• QST HM 820: Strategy, Economics, and Policy in the Health Sector
  Graduate Prerequisites: (QSTBE 720 or QSTBE 721) - This course studies the strategic and economic issues facing insurers, providers, and life-sciences companies in the healthcare sector. The course will adapt tools from health economics, strategy, and finance to understand the problems faced by these firms. The course will also examine the problems faced by regulators, who must craft policies that shape the healthcare sector: which hospital mergers to allow; what procedures health insurers must cover; how public programs ought to reimburse life-sciences companies; how quality of care is measured and rewarded; and so on.
• QST HM 848: Driving Health Sector Innovation
  This course examines an array of compelling opportunities for innovation, incremental and disruptive, across products and services, created within existing organizations or by starting new businesses. It bridges design and implementation, examining the unique and complex array of elements that make successful innovation in the health sector so difficult, and developing the skills and knowledge needed to effectively address those challenges. The course provides a conceptual framework, and then emphasizes hands-on engagement, concrete exercises, written cases, and in-class speakers who are engaged in real-world innovation initiatives. Students will have the opportunity to focus on areas of particular interest and relevance to current or future work. They will leave better equipped to drive or support the viable, value-creating innovation so desperately needed in the health sector.
• QST LA 245: Business Law, Contracts, and Regulation
  Undergraduate Prerequisite: QST SM131. - This course provides a broad overview of the fundamental legal issues of significance for business. It examines contracts, business organizations, employment law, intellectual property, and international law. It explores the regulatory environment affecting businesses in the United States and around the globe. The course goals include understanding the basic rules of business law and the underlying social policies and ethical dilemmas that affect business operations and investments.
• QST LA 325: Action Learning Lab: Legal Foundations of Starting a Business
  Pre-requisites: QSTLA 245, QSTXP 298, and junior standing. This course is designed to help business students learn about the process of starting a business, step by step, from both an operational and legal perspective. Students will be working with an external client, Lawyers for Civil Rights, which provides free business support and legal services to low-income entrepreneurs so that they can overcome obstacles and access more opportunities. The course and course deliverables will take students through the journey of helping real clients in the community understand the legal and strategic issues that entrepreneurs should consider when launching a new enterprise. Recent events have shown that it is vital for entrepreneurs and those who work with them to spot legal issues before they become real problems and to practice strategic compliance management. The final project and final project presentation will require student teams to create and present to the client about a business plan for a specific type of business.
• QST LA 333: Competition Law and Strategy
  Pre-requisite: QSTLA 245. This course is designed for undergraduate business students to understand antitrust law from a strategic business perspective. Through a highly experiential approach, the course moves away from a traditional, doctrine-heavy format. It emphasizes real-world applications of antitrust concepts using simulation exercises, role-playing, and strategic analysis. Classes blend short readings, practical case summaries, and podcasts with hands-on simulations. A central objective is to help students think like business leaders who must navigate regulatory challenges — not simply spot legal violations. Each simulation encourages critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and the development of legal risk management strategies.